Capital Punishment on Trial: Furman v. Georgia and the Death Penalty in Modern America

Capital Punishment on Trial: Furman v. Georgia and the Death Penalty in Modern America. By David M. Oshinsky. (Lawrence: Universicy Press of Kansas, 2010. xiv, 144 pp. Cloth, $29.95, rsBN 978?-7?06?71??. Paper, $14.95, isbn 978-0-7006-1711-1.)

The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David M. Oshinsky's book about che death penalty in modern America is a brief, masrerly synthesis of existing scholarship aboue Americans' efforts co interpret and implemenc che Eighth Amendmene's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment Oshinsky navigates the "long and troubled history" of capital punishmenc by focusing chiefly on the major dearh penalty cases that came to the Supreme Coure of che Uniced Seates (p. 4). He makes it clear chac, for the American people and the Courr, ehe death penalcy exists in tension between the demand for retribution and che promise ofthe Declaration of Independence and...